


Beautiful

by Music_Feeds_My_Soul



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: A little bit of sexism, Death? Somewhat on/off screne, Discussion of Traditional beauty, F/M, Riley Cousland, self-hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 18:22:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8220508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Music_Feeds_My_Soul/pseuds/Music_Feeds_My_Soul
Summary: Riley is not beautiful, she knows this. Zevran disagrees.





	

“I say you are beautiful because you are… unless you object?” Zevran asks with a purr, a smirk on his face. Riley snorts lowly, holding up a hand.

“Stop.” She tells him. “If you wish to bed me, my answer is maybe. You do not need to fling lies at me to try and tempt me.”

“Lies? My dear Warden-“ Zevran begins but Riley shakes her head.

“I am not beautiful, I know this. You do not need to pander to a nonexistent ego.”

“Riley!” Leliana calls out, waving a hand towards the two. Riley gives Zevran a nod and leaves to spar with the archer, leaving the elf behind to stare at her in confusion.

How… how was she not beautiful?

-0-

Riley’s always know she was never beautiful. As a child, her nose was oddly set in her face, her lips just a little too thin and lopsided.

“She’ll grow into it.” People said before they turned to coo over Anora and her perfect looks and smile. Riley remembers the murmurs about how it seemed the Cousland blood wasn’t as good as it used to be.

Her mother refused to listen to it, telling her she was perfect, but Riley knew she was lying. No one called her beautiful. No one.

She was strong, stronger than most girls at age seven and so her father handed her a sword and shield. Her mother tutted but smiled upon seeing how happy she was.

She broke her nose twice. A scar hit her chin and stayed.

She grew older and older and soon acne covered her face, scars from picking at them beginning to form. Her mother taught her make-up a whole year early. And Riley learned. She learned how to drap clothes to look like a woman, to hide her square chest and small breasts, how to look like she had hips. How to layer gold and silver to distract from her square face and how to paint her face to hide all her imperfections. She learned how to tame her wild mess of hair and how to fake her walk.

She was a Cousland, a noble. And she was not beautiful.

It was not right.

-0-

“Ah, my dear Warden, you look radiant tonight,” Zevran says with a smile as he sits down next to her on watch, the human woman sharpening her sword.

“What did I say about lies Zevran?”

“But I am not lying.” He protests. Riley laughs bitterly.

“Of course you aren’t.” she mocks and Zevran shrugs.

“You are strong, determined and brave. How is that not beautiful?”

“Mhm, and my breasts and face do not subtract from that?” Riley asks sourly. Zevran hums, leaning back on his elbows.

“I still think you’re beautiful… though you never told me, what did you mean by maybe?” She doesn’t bother asking what he means.

“I… I am a noblewoman. Unless it is confirmed my brother still lives, to be unpure is a disgrace.” She looks uncomfortable. Zevran snorts.

“Nobles, so silly about such things.” Riley blinks and then laughs.

“I suppose.”

-0-

Riley is thirteen when her parents sit her down and carefully explain what she will be doing for the rest of her life. They are Couslands, and their children play the politics. Her brother is happy with a pretty Antiva noble that strengthens their alliance.

“You can find a man to love sweetie!” her mother tells her happily.

“Or we can… arrange something.” There were plenty of nobles who prefer their own sex. Riley’s a little too young to know yet.

Riley’s fourteen when mages look her over and proclaim she has a low fertility. Her dowry increases a bit, and her parents look to men with long lings of known fertility.

Riley is taught everything she should know at her father’s feet. How to run a house, how to run a guard, how to train knights and how to run a treasury. She’d made into a general, a noble who would run her husband’s estate.

She’s never been given a real choice honestly.

-0-

When she learns from Alistair of the low fertility brought upon by the taint, she turns to Wynne who proclaims her infertile.

She takes Zevran to bed that night, Zevran kissing her slowly and her moving her hands nervously.

“Beautiful,” Zevran proclaims upon seeing her body and she snorts lowly.

“Stop…” she would say more but he kisses her again and things fly around.

The next day as he murmurs beautiful into her ear, she doesn’t try to stop him.

-0-

She kisses a boy when she’s fifteen behind the stables. He’s a squire who likes boys, but he wants to know what kissing a girl is like so she does.

She likes it, but not enough for a tumble like another squire offers. Instead, she focuses on her sword and shield and figures things can be figured out later.

When she meets her suitors, they call her beautiful. Until they find her in the yard beating squires and knights alike. They call her My Lady and nothing more.

Some drop their suits for others.

When Anora marries Calian, people whisper to one another about him picking the pretty common blood over a Cousland.

No noble is surprised.

Riley hates herself a bit more after that.

-0-

Zevran isn’t sure when it began, but Riley picking him up during battle becomes a common thing. She’s fast, strong, and a Templar in training to boot. She can throw off most spells with her enchanted armor and weapons, so picking him up and running with him out of range from a spell cast by Wynne or Morrigan is simple enough.

The first time is an annoyance, the second time is shock and the third he begins to take advantage. She’s still unimpressed by compliments, even dropping him when they get to be too much, but he means every single one.

She is beautiful, a warrior goddess, and he hates how she thinks him a liar.

“Ah, my beautiful warden!” he chimes in as she carries him to Wynne after she bashed him a bit too hard in sparring. “How dashing of you to carry me to our lovely healer.”

“Want to hopefully bury your head in her magical bossom?” Riley asks, looking more bored than anything.

“Ah, when I am so close to your own? No, I am quite happy where I am!” he smirks and Riley groans, her cheeks flushing slightly as Zevran leans into her a bit more.

“Maker dammit Zev…” she mutters to herself and Zevran just laughs.

“Ah, to see your blush! I simply wish we were in our tent and I could see-“ she drops him without much fanfare onto the bedroll they had designated as the main medical point. “Oof! My beautiful-“

“Well, I am going to go make sure Alistair actually caught food, be back! Wynne, don’t heal him to quick!” Riley says, taking off nervously. Wynne simply chuckles.

“Eventually she will drop you into a lake you know.” She tells him with a smile.

“Ah, but what a pleasure it will be before then.”

-0-

When Riley is twenty, darkspawn are approaching from the Wilds and her parents are finalizing a betrothal for her.

When Riley is twenty, she meets her betrothal and smiles, ignoring how he grimaces back.

When Riley is twenty, she wants to die, crying into her Mabari’s fur while she waits for morning.

When Riley is twenty, she would give anything to change her fate.

When Riley is twenty, she hates herself even more.

-0-

“MOVE!” Riley shouts, grabbing him and tossing him away from the battle in the Alienage, the Tevinter Magister snarling like a mad dog as he throws a fireball at them. Zevran lets out a sigh of relief, realizing that the oil trap he had tried to disarm only to get covered in it would have ended up with him in a blaze.

And then he witnesses Riley screaming in pain as the oil on herself lights and his stomach drops.

“RILEY!” he shouts in horror, watching as her long braid is set ablaze and as she swings, her sword flashing through the air and cutting off their enemies head as Morrigan throws a cold spell at her, the ice putting out the fire, but…

Riley falls, and Zevran rushes to her, his mind conjuring images of Rinna and no, no, no, not again…

He barely notices Leliana opening the cages as Morrigan uses what little healing magic she has to heal Riley, her face red and blotchy.

All he can do is stare at her and think, no…

-0-

When Riley meets the king, she isn’t wearing her jewels or make-up. She’s glaring, her eyes hot.

“Howe killed my family, your majesty.” She snaps, and he is horrified.

And his eyes skip over her.

She wants to cry but doesn’t.

She meets a man bickering with a mage, and his eyes look her over and then… don’t glance away but don’t take her in anymore.

That’s fine, that’s okay.

She’s fine.

-0-

When Riley comes to, Wynne is looking at her with tired eyes.

“Hello,” she says with a small smile. Riley grins, and frowns, turning to look at a head on her bed. Zevran’s rest, his hand holding hers and she feels her heart skip a beat. “He refused to move, insisted on remaining with you.”

“O… ow.” Riley winces, her face smarting and Wynne reaches out to touch her shoulder.

“The burn was very bad, and you will have scarring.” Wynne is blunt, her voice kind, but firm. “We had to shave most of your hair off, it was… unsalvageable.” Wynne looks at her with soft eyes, but no pity.

Riley’s glad for that. Wynne leaves to get a mirror, and Riley lets out a low breath, closing her eyes to try and hold back her tears.

“Hmm…” Zevran says, pulling his head up with a grin. She snorts, realizing he’d been awake. “Ah, my beautiful warden…” his eyes are soft and she turns her head away. “No, don’t-“

“Do not lie to me!” Riley says thickly. “I am not-“

“You are a goddess,” Zevran promises sternly, reaching out to grab her chin. “A goddess of war who is everything I could… everything anyone could want.” He hesitates before offering an earring to her. “I would… I wish for you to have this.”

“What…”

“A trinket, silly I…” his face goes red and Riley hesitates before she shakes her head, closing his hand.

“If you can give it to me with… with feelings involved, then yes.” Zevran snarls, jumping up and glaring at her.

“Fine! If you do not want it, then do not take it!” he storms off and Wynne slowly comes in, looking blank and holding a mirror.

“What do I look like?” Riley asks brokenly and Wynne holds it up wordlessly.

A large burn scar covers the right lower half of her face, creeping up past her nose and over her left eye. Morrigan had poured magic into her eye to keep it from being damaged.

Her hair was shaved so very little remained, only enough to run a brush over once.

Closing her eyes, Riley lets out a slow breath.

She was never beautiful.

This doesn’t matter!

But it does…

-0-

When Riley is twenty-one, she meets an elf who ambushes her and her party on the road. While fighting she notices how he leaves himself open, how he opens his arm to death and she wonders why. She studies him closely as she fights him, and knocks him out for later in curiosity.

“Uh… I’d rather thought I’d wake up dead… or not wake up at all…”

Those simple words changed everything.

-0-

“Fight me with the honor you lost,” Riley says, her voice hard as she stands in front of the crowd. She’s wearing her warden armor, polished to a shine. The Cousland Sword and Shield hang on her back and she wears golden hoops in her ears. She stands with burns and scars and does not cover them. “Fight me to the death, and face it as a Hero and not as a traitor.”

“So be it,” Loghain says firmly. The two begin, their shields clashing, their swords clanging and their blood pumping. Loghain goes for what he thinks is her blind side and she shoves back, her blade slamming into his unprotected neck.

He chokes and she hears Riordan and Anora cry out.

She does not listen.

“Goodbye,” she says, looking at the man who was once a hero, once a man with ideals and beliefs. She says goodbye to who he once was, and kills the man he has become.

When it’s all over, she keeps Alistair off the throne. In her mind, it’s a terrible choice, and in her heart, she knows that it’s the best one.

He does not want it. And she’s tired of listening to ‘what should be’ and ‘the rules’.

They leave Denerim that knight, Arl Eamon angry and bitter she destroyed his power play and she just wants to get away from the city that night.

She doesn’t speak to anyone, simply leaning against her mabari and staring at the sky with dead eyes.

“Ah, my beautiful warden!” Zevran says, coming towards her while carrying a bottle of wine that looks a little too expensive...

She doesn’t want to know, not really.

“Beautiful still?” she asks, and ever since she killed Loghain things are… calmer. When she sliced through his neck, she knew she would never be seen as a noble again, that killing one of them would never be forgiven.

It feels like a weight is off her shoulders.

“You have always been beautiful, now? Simply more so.” Zevran says, sitting down next to her. She chuckles a little, stealing the wine only to stop at seeing what was in the cork. “I know what you said and this time it is a token of affection.” He says it firmly, looking at her with his big eyes.

Riley smiles and swoops in to press a long kiss on his lips. She pulls away to tug out an earring and stick her new one in, keeping eye contact.

Zevran grins in return.

-0-

Riley is twenty-one when she is told she is beautiful.

Riley is twenty-two when she believes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Riley is a character I created after reading a post about how the ‘beautiful’ characters of the Wardens are probably the mages and the nobles because they got access to health care and probably better food. 
> 
> This was followed by reading about political matches and someone wondering about how the Couslands would react to the whole thing. In turn, I ended up creating Riley.
> 
> I used Anora as a template for noble beauty in my head and made Riley the opposite. Beautiful blonde hair? Try frizzy, wavy, uncontrollable red hair. Nice skin? Try acne riddled, pock marked and scarred skin. Nice feminine figure? Try masculine ‘box-like’ figure. Riley has a square face, a heavy set nose and her lips are lopsided. She is not meant to be beautiful, and I wanted to role-play her in a way because of that.
> 
> Riley is the second child of the Cousland family, and the only girl. You cannot tell me that they wouldn’t have her be a political pawn for them. They love her, but they are nobles. As such, she’s always been aware her looks hold her back and she’s self-conscious about it. She hates it, and it’s why she learned so many other things so she can go: Well, I can still do this, and this, and I know this!
> 
> The whole fetility thing happened when I was diagnosed with PCOS and Riley ended up with it as well as a coping thing. Riley’s body issues also stem from her PCOS as well, which just lends more to her depression.
> 
> So, here we are with Riley. She’s not beautiful. She wouldn’t be called handsome either, plain is the best description for her. I played her as being very charming and slowly becoming more and more blunt as time went on, more open about her annoyance and more ticked off about the world in general. It was awesome.
> 
> EDIT: October 10.  
> Small update- I realized I accidently left the last two sentances off when I pasted my work into the text box.


End file.
